US begins reassessing Sudan policy
WASHINGTON, March 9 (AFP) -- US Secretary of State Colin Powell summoned his key Africa advisers Friday in an effort to reassess the US policy toward Sudan, which has been mired in a bloody ethnic and religious war for the past 18 years.
"It's well described as a brainstorming session," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. He did not name those attending the policy meeting.
It was "a chance to discuss with the secretary the information, the history, the past, the future, and to really look at what we do about the situation there in terms of the war," Boucher said.
The Sudanese war is seen by experts as one of the most intractable and potentially destabilizing in Africa.
Pitting the country's predominantly Muslim north against the Christian and Animist south, it has left more than two million dead and driven 4.4 million people out of their homes, according to US foreign policy experts.
"The human suffering in Sudan have been an enormous tragedy," said Boucher. "Ending the conflict remains a priority."
The administration of President George W. Bush has been under pressure to review the US policy toward Sudan, which has so far focused on trying to keep the Islamist government in Khartoum in international isolation, through a combination of international and bilateral sanctions.
Last month, an international task force, which included State Department and CIA officials, called for a major new diplomatic initiative to end the country's civil war while preserving the unity of the state.
Criticizing the Clinton administration for having made "little headway in ending Sudan's war," that panel proposed a "one Sudan, two systems" formula, which would allow significantly expanded autonomy for the South, while preserving the country as a single state.
The group is also urging the Bush administration to forge an international coalition, which, besides the United States, would include Britain, Norway and Sudan's neighbors, to facilitate a negotiated settlement of Sudan's ethnic and religious war. |
